When visiting Oxford in early February for a conference, I was invited to speak with my two colleagues who, with my help, founded Voices from Oxford (VOX) in 2009. The discussion was held in Rhodes House, one of the most beautiful and historic buildings in Oxford. As befitting the venue, my colleagues asked big, challenging questions about major issues in Britain and the US, particularly around Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, very soon after his election. As noted on the VOX web site:

“The three original founder members of Voices from Oxford discuss and debate Brexit and the election of Donald Trump. Dr Sung Hee Kim, Prof Denis Noble and Prof Bill Dutton founded Voices from Oxford in 2009, and are reunited at Rhodes House in Oxford to discuss the monumental political events of 2016. They examine the reasons and background of the populism which led to Brexit and Trump, as well as looking at some possible ways forward for the people of the UK and USA. The role of the media and social media in both events is analysed, and they talk about perceptions of each event from the viewpoint of the other country. They then move on to a more global outlook, including the role of China and its role in East Asian and world affairs.”

The interviewers are not just good colleagues, but very prominent members of the Oxford community. Professor Denis Noble is one of the most distinguished professors I became acquainted with in Oxford. I met Denis at Balliol College, where he described for me his record of research on modeling the heart, with his models evolving in pace with the rapid evolution of computing. He remains as an Emeritus Fellow, but he also held the Burdon Sanderson Chair of Cardiovascular Physiology at the University of Oxford from 1984 to 2004 and was appointed Professor Emeritus and co-Director of Computational Physiology. Over lunches at Balliol, he and I and Sung Hee Kim began talking about the need to use new media to help bring Oxford to the larger world. Sung Hee Kim’s first career was as in broadcasting in South Korea, from which she went on to Oxford to earn her doctorate at Exeter College in the Faculty of English Language and Literature. She straddles the UK and Korea as a Visiting Professor at Seoul National University.

My major qualifications for addressing the issues we discuss are being old, and having lived in Britain for years, and only back in the States for a few years. Nevertheless, I was delighted to share my views, and would also welcome your comments and criticisms on what I said.